City of Punta Gorda Adaptation Plan Southwest Florida Regional ...

2) Extracting seagrass

2) Extracting seagrass plantings from donor beds is very destructive. It will take many years for donor beds to recover if they ever do. No documentation of the donor bed recovery has ever been provided by workers in the field. 3) The ecology of sea grass communities is site specific. Research in sea grass restoration in the Florida Keys does not necessarily apply to Charlotte Harbor. 4) So far no one has performed and reported a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment of the overall biological system in a restored grass bed. 5) Sea grass may be growing all over the site, but it is not known that restored grassbeds are as productive for fisheries as a natural sea grass system. 6) Sea grass restoration attempts to date have been very expensive, long term and labor intensive. 7) In summary of the information available it is clear that sea grass bed mitigation should only be attempted when the following criteria among others are met. a. It is a restoration of a previously impacted grass bed area following removal of the impacting factor. b. The source material is gathered only from "donor‖ beds which are going to be destroyed in total by permitted project activities. c. The methods of planting area those demonstrably effective for that species in that area. d. The project is monitored and continued replacement of mortality of plantings continues until at least a 5-year stable target areal coverage is established and maintained. e. The target areal coverage should be empirically established by reference to natural grass bed systems in the project site area. f. It the project is mitigation then the mitigative plantings should occur prior to commencement of the project construction. g. Only public projects where no reasonable siting alternative exists would be allowed to destroy extant natural grass bed areas which would be mitigated for. h. The ratio of the areal extent of restoration should be the inverse of the existing survival rates established for that area. For example in Tampa Bay using Tampa Bay plants, Thalassia testudinum restorations should be set at a ratio of 1/0.50 or 2 acres restored to 1 acre impacted. AdaptationPlan Page 118

Vulnerability 2: Inadequate Water Supply A drought is defined as "a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently prolonged for the lack of water to cause serious hydrologic imbalance in the affected area." (Glossary of Meteorology 1959). In easier to understand terms, a drought is a period of unusually persistent dry weather that lasts long enough to cause serious problems such as crop damage and/or water supply shortages. The severity of the drought depends upon the degree of moisture deficiency, the duration, and the size of the affected area. There are actually four different ways that drought can be defined. A meteorological drought is a measure of departure from normal amounts of precipitation. Due to climatic differences, what might be considered a drought in one location of the country may not be a drought somewhere else. This type of drought generally ranges in duration from a period of months to years. An agricultural drought refers to a situation in which the amount of moisture in the soil no longer meets the needs of a particular crop. A hydrological drought occurs when surface and subsurface water supplies are below normal. A socioeconomic drought refers to the situation that occurs when physical water shortages begin to affect people. No region in North America is immune to periodic droughts; in any given year, at least one region experiences drought conditions (FEMA). Drought is a normal part of virtually every climate on the planet, even rainy ones. Temperatures that hover 10 degrees or more above the average high temperature for the region and last for several weeks are defined as extreme heat. Humid or muggy conditions, which add to the discomfort of high temperatures, occur when a "dome" of high atmospheric pressure traps hazy, damp air near the ground. Excessively dry and hot conditions can provoke dust storms and low visibility. A heat wave is an extended time interval of abnormally and uncomfortably hot and unusually humid weather. To be a heat wave, such a period should last at least one day, but conventionally it lasts from several days to several weeks (Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM)). A prolonged drought can have serious economic impacts on a community. Increased demand for water and electricity may result in shortages. Moreover, food shortages may occur if agricultural production is damaged or destroyed by a loss of crops or livestock. Heat related illness can be very serious for the elderly, small children, chronic invalids, overweight individuals, and those taking certain medications, drugs, or alcohol. Impacts on transportation include: aircraft losing lift at high temperatures; highways and roads being damaged by excessive heat; asphalt roads softening; concrete roads "exploding", lifting three- to four- foot pieces of concrete; stress on automobile cooling systems, diesel trucks, and railroad locomotives, leading to an increase in mechanical failures; and train rails developing sun kinks and distortion. Refrigerated goods experience a significantly greater rate of spoilage due to extreme heat (FEMA). The electric transmission system is impacted when power lines sag in high temperatures. During the summer of 1996, a major west coast power outage impacting four states was blamed in part on extreme high temperatures causing sagging transmission lines to short out. The combination AdaptationPlan Page 119